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Jim LaBarbara the "Music Professor"- A Life Amplified Through Radio & Rock 'n' Roll

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Jim LaBarbara "The Music Professor" shares his honest firsthand account of his experience during a dynamic and sometimes tubulent life on and off the radio. He was there when the controversy of playing music performed by black artists was coming to an end, and was later innocently thrust in the middle of the payola scandals.

When Jim LaBarbara did his first radio show in 1959 he couldn't have imagined it would lead to a Hall of Fame career that spanned more than fifty years; one where he would work on some of the country's most powerful stations. During his "Happy Days" he was a dreamer whose dreams of baseball and the trumpet became a reality. In college he gave church sermons and studied religion and philosophy. There have been a couple of "Guardian Angels" in his life and a "Hell's Angel" who saved his life.

In the era of the Big Red Machine, his best friend was Johnny Bench and his college professor, Dr. Bill Randle, was the major player in the selling of Elvis. His story is told for the first time. For those who grew up in the 50's and the baby boomer generation, along with others interested in pop culture, you will be transported back to the beginning of rock music. Jim was with with the Supremes, the Beatles, and the Rolling Stones. He interviewed hundreds of entertainers including Bill Haley, Jackie Wilson, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, James Brown, Ray Charles, Jerry Lee Lewis, Neil Diamond, John Denver, and others. It is with the help of these interviews that he tells his own story and in so doing gives a unique persprctive of the history of rock 'n' roll.

About the author

JIm LaBarbara began his career in broadcasting in 1959 while working on his undergraduate degree from Allegheny College in Pennsylvania and has been heard on hundreds of radio and television commercials. Throughout the years Jim worked under the pseudonyms of Jimmy Holiday while working in Meadville, Titusville, and DuBois, Pennsylvania, and J. Bentley Starr in Erie, Pennsylvania. He began using his real name on the 50,000-watt WKYC and WIXY in Cleveland and also the year he spent in Denver. However, he is best known as the "Music Professor," a moniker that was given to him when he began his work in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he worked for the powerful WLW, WCKY, WSAI, and WGRR FM, among others. Jim's graduate studies were at the University of Cincinnati where he earned a Master's Degree in Broadcasting and was also an adjunct professor at that university for several years. Jim is regarded as a respected musicologist on early rock 'n' roll, was named one of the "Top 40 Radio Personalities of All Time," is listed in the Rock Jock Hall of Fame, and was inducted into the Radio/Television Broadcasters Hall of Fame in Akron, Ohio. He has a son and daughter and lives in Cincinnati, Ohio with his wife Sally.

Jim LaBarbara Returns To Radio

Kids are back in school, and the Music Professor is back on the radio.

Jim LaBarbara, known as the Music Professor for nearly three decades on WLW-AM and WGRR-FM, now can be heard 10 a.m.-2 p.m. on Classic Country WNKR-FM (106.7) and streamed at 1067wnkr.

"I'm telling stories about those great songs and singers," says LaBarbara, who started Monday.

"It's a privilege to put Jim on the air. He has such a well-known voice," says WNKR-FM owner Jeff Ziesmann. "He's the Music Professor, not the Rock 'n' Roll Professor. He's gone out of his way to get to know country music. He has a tremendous amount of knowledge about all types of music."

Credit Provided by WNKR-FM

The Dry Ridge station, about 30 miles south of Cincinnati, reaches all of Northern Kentucky and most of Hamilton County's hilltops (Price Hill, Kenwood), Ziesmann says. It was founded in 1992, and moved to 106.7 from 106.5 about 10 years ago.

This is LaBarbara's second stint at the country station. He was there in 2007-09, after leaving WGRR-FM. The Pittsburgh native came to Cincinnati from Cleveland to do afternoons on WLW-AM (1969-1983), and then he worked 14 years at WGRR-FM (1993-2007), where Ziesmann was a salesman. LaBarbara also did a talk show on WCKY-AM.

Ziesmann met LaBarbara 40 years ago when he was a UC student in an announcing class taught by the DJ in the College-Conservatory of Music in the 1970s.

"I've never let him forget he gave me a B," Ziesmann says.

﻿ OHIOana Finalist

Jim LaBarbara "The Music Professor" and Author was selected as one of the 2013 OHIOANA BOOK AWARD finalists! Jim was one of 6 finalists in the about Ohio/Ohioan Category Linda Hengst, executive director of the Ohioana Library said: "We receive 600-800 traditionally published books each year, which become eligible for the Book Awards, so the authors of the books selected as finalists this year should feel truly honored."

JIM LA BARBARA

Now Avaliable to Deejay Class Reunions,

Parties--Emcee Events

513 793 3721

JIM LA BARBARA

HONORED

The FRATELLI UNITI at their 25th Anniversary on Dec 24, 2015 Honored Jim as the 2015

ITALIAN AMERICAN MAN OF THE YEAR

JIM LABARBARA'S

Back in the Classroom March 2016

I'm proud to say I am a member of the faculty at the Ohio Media School Cincinnati Campus. My thanks to Director Phil Brown for this opportunity to share my broadcast experiences and to pass on my knowledge to students who want to learn the profession. Years ago I was a adjunct professor at the University of Cincinnati & Xavier University.

CLAUDE HALL WROTE "IT'S THE BEST BOOK I'VE READ BY A DISC JOCKEY. LABARBARA WRITES WELL"

Claude Hall was the radio-TV editor for Billboard Magazine for 14 years.

Hollywood Hills

www.hollywoodhillsgroup.com

November 12, 2012 Commentary

by Claude Hall

We were big. You and me. Super stars. And then we were nothing. Except, of course some of us still bask in that glow of success that once was. Maybe not as strong a glow, but now a warm, soft floodlight. One of these is Jim LaBarbara, the Music Professor. What William B. Williams was to New York City, Jim LaBarbara was - and still is - to Cincinnati. What Gary Owens was to Los Angeles - still is - that is Jim LaBarbara to Cincinnati. A radio cultural icon. He told me some while back that he was writing a book - "Jim LaBarbara: The Music Professor"- - focusing on his countless interviews with recording artists and was going to include a chapter on Bill Randle. I asked if I could have the chapter on Bill Randle. Understand this: All that Top 40 came to be may have been because of Bill Randle. I believe this is absolutely true. But in this world and maybe the next, nothing is definite. We accumulate information, postulate, wait for additional information. Postulate again. And continue the research. Thus, I would have begged for that chapter. Instead, Jim sent me his book. And I'm grateful. It's radio life at the hard peak. Dramatic, Pithy, Raw, Sensitive. And JIm LaBarbara WRITES WELL. THIS IS HISTORY, AS HE LIVED IT. GREAT HISTORY RADIO HISTORY.

There are many, including myself and Jim LaBarbara, who more or less worshipped Bill Randle. For just reason. Randle deserves a book....

It was promotion whiz Don Graham who set up my first meeting with Randle. At a rooftop swimming pool in downtown Manhatten where Bill swam, had a sandwich, showered before going to his one-hour daily show on WCBS. Then back to Cleveland to do his daily show on WERE. I met him again when Billboard tossed one of those exceedingly boring corporate meetings in the Cincinnati area. After I quickly told other employees how great I was, I joined Bill Randle for a drive through town. Our chauffeur was Jim LaBarbara who, as far as I can remember, never said a word. Bill told me that he'd produced more than a hundred hit records at King Studios in Cincinnati. He had not placed his name on the 45 rpms for fear that other disc jockeys might not play the records. Just one of these groups he produced was the Crew-Cuts, which Jim LaBarbara mentions in his book, along with other acts. Jim also covers with flair and accuracy Randle's role in the careers of Elvis Presley, Johnny Ray and others.

Jim doesn't just discuss Bill Randle, he mentions countless names from Sonny & Cher to Tony Orlando, Bobby Vee,Buddy Holly, the Supremes...you get the idea? Plus Gary Owens, Ken Draper, Harry Hare Martin, Dick Biondi, Joe Finan, Dick Clark, Jack Armstrong...on and on. Alan Freed, too. Charlie Murdock! He even mentions Jane Scott, a reporter with the Cleveland Plain Dealer who also was a stringer for Billboard; I ran several stories that she wrote; she was great. You must get this book! It's $28 from Little Miami Publishing, P.O. Box 588, Milford,Oh 45150-0588. Cheap at that price! www.littlemiamibooks.com

Got to give you a snippert from the book. Jim had been fired at WKYC in Cleveland because of a new manager. "I was devastated. My last night was a Saturday show. When I got off at ten, one of the new guys who had been with us a few weeks, Chuck Dunaway, took over. I was in the hallway, leaving with my girlfriend Susan, when he said to me, "Hey, you won't be doing anything for a while -- listen to me. I'll show you how it's supposed to be done." That really hurt and embarrassed me in front of Susan. I knew my career could be over. Chuck had been with some great stations, including WABC, New York. What he said was true, I could learn from him, but to say that to me was just being a jerk."

That's what Jim LaBarbara is all about - stories. Well. At least there are two of us who think Chuck Dunaway is a jerk.

The stories that LaBarbara tells are based on his radio interviews over the years. And, of couse his career. I've just read about LaBarbara throwing a huff and quitting when Dan Clayton joins WLW. Clayton pleads with him not to leave: Clayton is to be the new program director. LaBarbara, however, goes to Denver for a year before rejoining WLW. In the book, LaBarbara confesses to making a mistake when he left WLW. I've just read this when, viola, who walks in my door but Kenneth "Dan Clayton" Wolt, now a citizen of Las Vegas.

One of the stories in ths book was extremely embarrassing to me. Not know, fortunately I guess, by everyone. But I planned each annual International Radio Programming Forum meticulously. Stem to stern. Research. Organization. Execution. After the one at the Century-Plazza in Los Angeles with the help of L. David Moorhead, general manager of KMET-FM, Los Angeles. And I gather he had permission from George Duncan, president of Metromedia, though I don't know this for a fact.

One of the panel sessions in New Orleans was guided by Ted Atkins and featured Bill Randle, Jim LaBarbara, the Magnificent Montague,and Jack Lawyer. To demonstrate what some shock jocks could get away with on the air, Randle played a tape of Gary Dees in the Cleveland market. It was absolutely despicable. You felt sick. I remember the topic even now. Montague blew his top. And I can't blame him. People began to grow angry. Atkins deserted, coming past me he leaned down and said, "Don't you ever do this to me again!" Jesus! I had no idea! I swear. Anyway, that was the end of that session. I got the tape and sent it to a friend at the FCC. He told me that no one had protested Gary Dees. Anyway, Jim LaBarbara writes about that whole scene--and later about Buzz Bennett at the awards dinner. You don't want to know that bit.

I"M COMPLETELY FASCINATED BY THIS BOOK. I'TS THE BEST BOOK I"VE READ BY A DISC JOCKEY. LABARBARA WRITES WELL AND HE EVIDENTLY KEPT NOTES ABOUT EVERYTHING. Paul Drew, Chuck Blore, baseball, basketball, the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, Neil Sedaka.

I recommend this book without reservation. You will enjoy it immensely. It will look good in your bookcase and impress the devil out of your friends and relatives. It impressed the devil out of me!

by Claude Hall

First National Book Mention

Huffington Post front page of the Health Section & on AOL It was also Don's story in 400 newspapers

The PSA Exam and Watching My Father Die Needlessly

Jim LaBarbara's new biography, "The Music Professor," has a section in his book about my dad.

LaBarbara said that Big Joe McNay "was bigger than life. He was friends with everyone from (Johnny) Bench and Pete (Rose) to the big politicians. I think he introduced me to half the people in town, everyone seemed to like him."

I didn't like dad; I loved him. I learned how to deal with people from watching the master. A master who died at age 59 of prostate cancer. PSA (Prostate-Specific Antigen) tests were not common when dad was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1992.

A world famous physician was in dad's inner circle and dad went for regular checkups. No one ever thought to include the PSA exam. Dad was a former athlete in tremendous health, worked out seven days a week and enjoyed every moment of life.

Dad fought prostate cancer with a courage that amazed everyone. A tall and powerful man, he went from 228 pounds to 140 pounds, but kept fighting to the end. It was not unusual to hear the bones in his ribs and legs snap as the cancer ate them away. Painful as it was, he never gave up.

Prostate cancer was a battle he should not have had to fight. A simple PSA exam could have saved his life. If he had the PSA exam, he might have lived to meet the grandchildren and great grandchildren who came into the family after his death.

His death made me a zealot for getting my own PSA exams and encouraging my friends to do the same. Several of my friends have been saved by early detection. Now a panel of bureaucrats, the United States Preventive Services Task Force, has called PSA unnecessary. I would like to have the members of that task force spend 15 minutes going through what dad went through for 15 months. They might have a different view of the PSA test.

I believe it is easy to see what is driving the task force: money. A ruling of this type makes it easier for health insurance companies to deny coverage for PSA exams in the future. The PSA is a simple blood test. It is not invasive, painful or particularly expensive.

If you are wondering why you have heard of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force before, it may be because in 2009 they recommended that women under 50 not get routine mammograms. Although a recent USA Today article said that mammograms at age 40 reduce the risk of dying by 15 percent, U.S. Preventive Services Task Force decided they were unnecessary. Public outcry kept the task force's recommendations from being implemented. A lot of lives were saved. Now that same form of outrage is needed to stop the panel from eliminating PSAs.

Reading "The Music Professor" bought me back to the days when my father was still around. Along with my personal connection to Jim, it is a fascinating read. It is a first rate history of the rock and roll era of the 1960s and 1970s, and gives behind the scenes details about sports personalities who were part of Cincinnati's Big Red Machine era.

LaBarbara came to fame in a era where disc jockeys like Wolfman Jack, Dick Clark and Alan Freed were often more popular than the performers. LaBarbara was named one of the top 40 radio personalities of all time and is in the Radio/Television/ Broadcasters Hall of Fame.

LaBarbara operated out of WLW in Cincinnati. Johnny Bench was the best man in his wedding, and Jim was connected to every celebrity and influential person in that city. Jim met or interviewed every musical act you could think of, such as Elvis, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and the Supremes. Just like my dad was, Jim is a first rate storyteller. As his book noted, Jim and my dad were close friends. I would love to see what they would have done together if dad were still alive.

When Micheal Milken was diagnosed with prostate cancer, a few years after my father was, he devoted most of his personal fortune and energies to finding a cure. The research he funded and his advocacy of PSA exams has made a big difference. Like breast cancer, people fighting prostate cancer found that early detection is the key. And now, like those fighting breast cancer, people fighting prostate cancer are now fighting with the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force.

"The Music Professor" Jim LaBarbara with his 1940s Wurlitzer 1015 jukebox.

Wanted to make sure you saw my Sunday story about former DJ Jim LaBarbara and his new autobiography. It’s filled with great stories about the greatest rock n rollers, and some of your favorite Cincinnati icons — from Ray Charles and the Rolling Stones, to Neil Diamond and James Brown, Don McLean to Bill Haley, to best friend Johnny Bench (best man at his wedding), Sparky Anderson, Bob Trumpy and Marty Brennaman.

He’ll be signing “Jim LaBarbara, The Music Professor: A Life Amplified Through Radio & Rock ‘n’ Roll” ($28; Little Miami Publishing) at Books by the Banks Saturday at the Duke Energy Convention Center downtown.

My favorite story is his revelation that feds investigated him for payola in the early 1970s. They thought they had him nailed for WLW-AM playing the Sesame Street “Rubber Duckie” song mulitple times every day — until he pointed out that it was during the simulcast “Bob Braun Show” between noon-1;30 p.m., when Rob Reider would sing it repeatedly to upset Braun!

Here are a couple of outtakes that didn’t make my story:

Roy Orbison on the Beatles: When Beatlemania hit in 1964, LaBarbara recalled how Roy Orbison predicted their U.S. stardom. Orbison, who was touring England in 1963, had said back then that if the Beatles “kept their hair like it was… and did a show like the ‘Ed Sullivan Show,’ then they would be as big here as they were in England.”

Jerry Lee Lewis on love: When Jerry Lee Lewis was playing the Beverly Hills Supper Club in 1974, backstage he cried and confessed he still loved his ex-wife Myra Brown, his first cousin once removed who was 13 when she married him. Lewis told him: “Jimmy, she wasn’t 13 – she was closer to 14.”

Sparky Anderson’s advice: LaBarbara writes that he got relationship advice from Sparky Anderson. During spring training in 1974 in tampa, Anderson told him over dinner to stop running around with all these ladies and settle down with Sally Suttle, the woman he had been dating. Spark told him: “You should marry that pretty girl, and when you do, I’ll be at your wedding.” And he was there, along with Bench, his best man, and Bob Braun.

I wrote the introduction for Randy's book "Cincinnati Sound" he has written a number of definitive books about the music business

Jim LaBarbara on the air in Cincinnati, 1980s.

Jim LaBarbara: A Life Amplified

Through Radio and Rock 'n' Roll

By Randy McNutt﻿

When the golden age of the 45-rpm single is re-examined, future historians will undoubtedly give proper credit to local disc jockeys who made and played the hits. One of them is Jim LaBarbara, late of Erie, Cleveland, Denver, Cincinnati, and other cities. Not only did he play the hits, but he interviewed and knew many of the singers and musicians who recorded them. He also has the distinction of being a major air personality in two great Ohio music towns.

One of the most knowledgeable air personalities in radio recalls his long career in Jim Labarbara, The Music Professor: A Life Amplified Through Radio and Rock 'n' Roll. It's not just another DJ book, nor is it a superficial one. It is a personal and career memoir, a rock history, and a tribute to the radio industry that employed him for fifty years. And it's also a lot of fun to read. Its many photographs give a sense of being there.

The radio industry that he discusses is mostly gone today. When he started in it in the late 1950s, the business was still wacky and wide open to people with big ideas. In the 1970s, I used to listen to LaBarbara--the Music Professor--on WLW Radio in Cincinnati, when he played the hits and then interviewed their artists. (I find it hard to believe that the same station today is mostly talk radio, but then that has happened all over the country.) If I missed his show, I thought I possibly missed something special. More recently, he played oldies on the popular WGRR in Cincinnati. Lately he has turned to chronicling his career, and with this book he proves that he can write with flair. He weaves his own story--a college kid wants to get into radio in the late 1950s--with the concurrent stories of singers who were making hit records in the early days of rhythm and blues and rock 'n' roll. Over the years, he interviewed hundreds of them, including Ray Charles, Jerry Lee Lewis, Jackie Wilson, Chuck Berry, Neil Diamond, John Denver, the Supremes, the Rolling Stones, and the Beatles. And yes, the book offfers anecdotes about dozens of them. Those anecdotes, including the ones he tells about himself, make the book interesting.

He worked in a time when radio was still exciting and creative. His radio career began at small stations in Pennsylvania, his home state. "I drove my new . . . light-blue 1959 Jaguar XK150 with red leather . . . 150 miles to Erie on a few hours sleep," he writes in a chapter titled "J. Bentley Starr," his on-air name then. "The receptionist laughed when she saw me. She still had all the postcards I sent. I was so tired, but I wanted to go on from seven to midnight. I felt terrific; my adrenalin was pumping, and about eleven o'clock that tnight, I got an idea. I was going to hijack the station. WWGO had the transmitter controls in the same area as my on-air studio. I had control of the station. They couldn't take me off. When the all-night man came in, I locked him out after putting the news microphone in the hall. He was a college student and didn't care; he studied. I put a huge desk in front of the door and stacked cabinets on top and barricaded myself in the studio. I was replacing a guy who left to go across the street to 'Jet,' the number-one station. It was shameless self-promotion: 'Hey everybody, look at me! Here I am.' It worked. The next morning by 9 a.m., the whole city knew I was in town, but my boss wasn't happy because I missed playing some commercials. [While on the air] he fired me a couple of times, but I had to tell him to watch his language because I had the news microphone in the hall turned on. A local high school team came to break the door down. During most of that time, I played one record--"C'mon and Swim" by Bobby Freeman--and introduced it differently every time . . . It drove me crazy; I can just imagine what listeners thought." When the marathon ended thirty-some hours later, his boss agreed to keep him. When LaBarbara finally went to his car to go home, however, he found a lot of parking tickets waiting.

Eventually, he became the station's music director as well as a DJ. He stayed in Erie into the British Invasion, when he played both a British and American countdown show every night. When the Beatles visited Pittsburgh in 1964, he asked them before the show, "The 'Yeah, Yeah, Yeah' in the song 'She Loves You,' was that inspired by your Liverpool friends Gerry and the Pacemakers' song 'I Like It'? Where did you get it? They all stood up [from the interview table] and mocked me, singing, 'Yeah, Yeah, Yeah.' Everybody got a good laugh."

He left Erie in 1966 to work for WKYC, a 50,000-watt Top 40 station in Cleveland, and WIXY. He used his real name.

LaBarbara was impressed and shocked at times by what he saw on stage and behind it. "I got shocked for the first time on stage . . . I was standing in a little puddle of sweat when I grabbed the microphone to take off [stage] a soaking wet Mitch Ryder. It hurt, but I kept it to myself."

He is reminded of a conversation he had with Jerry Lewis, who visited the radio station when his son Gary had some hits. "What advice did you give Gary?" LaBarbara asks him. "He said, 'Just make sure you can look at yourself the next day in the mirror.' A simple sentence but more complex than you might think."

In the '60s, LaBarbara was excited to work in Cleveland, one of the nation's top radio markets. In 1967, he says, he and Ken Scott tied for second place behind the popular Jerry G. in a Billboard magazine radio response rating for the city. "I was flattered to be in that company," he says. Cleveland was one of America's top radio markets.

Another LaBarbara story comes from Sonny Bono, just after he and Cher had divorced. The incident reveals the way the entertainment business works. To the public, Bono had went from big star on records and television to nobody, he tells LaBarbara, with people asking what he would do now that he didn't have Cher. People saw her as the major part of the act. "I had built this whole thing," he tells Jim. "I had written all the songs--ten million-selling songs. I had written the show I had created; I worked eleven years, devoted to this act. And when everything was shaken down, I came out really holding a fig leaf. You know, I thought, I don't ever want to do that again. So, I want to do things, and at least get recognized for what I do."

Turning to politics, Bono was elected mayor of Palm Springs and later a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. He later died in a skiing accident.

Another telling incident came years later, when the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame and Museum recognized famous DJ Bill Randle, LaBarbara's good friend and the man who once brought Elvis to Cleveland. "I was asked to sit on the dais," LaBarbara says. "As I sat there on stage, I thought about the irony. The one place I knew he had total disdain for was the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame. He told me that seventy-five to eighty percent of all the people [enshrined or noted] in there are accused or convicted felons. He certainly didn't like the politics involved with the selection process."

When the 1960s ended, and campus life erupted in violence, LaBarbara decided to move to Cincinnati, where he did a radio show that allowed him to conduct interviews with recording artists and play records. He became Jim LaBarbara, the Music Professor.